For the name of the gang...well, that depends mostly on what makes us a gang: i.e. are we mostly thieves and pickpockets? Or are we more so like some kind of drug pushers? For the former type of gang, Unseen Hand makes sense. To the latter...not as much. Overall, however, the Unseen Hand is fine by me. Maybe a bit Adam Smthy...but not enough that I really care XP

As for gang name, I personally think that a gang of teenagers would be pick the most ridiculous, over the top, don't mess with us name they could think of i.e. The Flaming Tarrasques, The Belly Slitters, or The Bloody Knives.

I don't actually mind "The Grandchildren" or maybe "The Witch's Familiars"

In the end I don't think it really matters, as this campaign is supposed to span years. I'm sure the name will change over time as the organization expands.

Sorry about double post, but we should start considering inter-group ties as well (since we all know each other, presumably).

For Nicator, I can see him being relatively close with Anton, given Anton's own dark "patron," and the interest in research that both have. He could possibly know Anton's sage friend as well, and use him as a source of books and research into his patron.

I'm not sure about the connection between Nic, Shaezon, and Aku. I could see them being a fairly tight-knit group as the arcane casters of the bunch, or having some sort of rivalry, given the different sources of magic that they have. He might also know Shaezon's librarian friend, and use him as a potential source of books and such as well. Hell, maybe Nic and Shaezon play chess (or Golarion equivalent) to pass the time--they're both fairly intelligent. Aku might be taking an interest in Gamil (the kid Nic looks out for), as he is also a budding sorcerer of some sort.

Not sure about his relationship with the other three. Nic and Weyland both lack clear memories of life before coming to the City, so maybe they commiserate about that. Treize, Weyland, and Tarek all seem like leadery types (frickin' rogues wanting to run the city....), if there's friction between them, maybe each is fairly close with one of the arcane folks? If not, I could see them working as the leaders of the gang--Treize running intelligence/pickpocketing, Tarek working on a more legal business front, and Weyland running the muscle.

Just throwing out some ideas, based my impressions of the group after a quick read through of background, goals, etc. Let me know what you all think, or if this differs from your image of the gang, DM Harakani.

Edit: Gah, Weyland snuck in there while I was typing. Well, at least that means I didn't double post.

Edit 2: Gah! Forgot Einar--miscounted by thinking "Oh, there's Anton, 3 casters, and the three rogues, adding up to 7 people besides Nic." Also not sure about Einar's relationship with Nic, but he seems like another potential leadery type, running the muscle alongside Weyland, perhaps.

If all goes well Aku's position in group will change dramatically over time. While he has fairly modest ambitions at the moment, things will change once his bloodline kicks in more as his behaviour will become more like an Oni.

Beyond that Aku is a perfect face. Once you look beyond the tattoos and the weird hair he actually is quite agreeable, though he can also be very threatening.

As far as the arcane caster thing goes, Aku doesn't really care about all that. All he knows is that his abilities are tied to his nightmares and as such there are times where he'd rather lose them altogether.

EDIT: Depends on what you see as exploitation. I think child labor is pretty much as given as far as I can see, but I also think that's the farthest it will goes. Unless you count us getting hurt as molestation.

I'd prefer if at this point the gang is a little unfocussed beyond defence. Individual members may do some questionable things to bring in money, but I'd like to start the game with the gang starting to really crystallise, rather than being an existent force.

The Unseen Hand is a reference to a v3.5 Prestige Class from The Complete Warrior... at least that's where I heard it and it stuck.

Child labor seems to be a given, yes. And "period appropriate" for most fantasy RPG settings. I was thinking more along the lines of avoiding child... prostitution, slavery, physical, mental and emotional abuse/molestation.

So, were a gang that's coming together. Are we all origially from the same district?

A little too late there, that actually already happened to Aku. The perpetrators were Oni though, so evil beyond redemption. Basically he was a slave to Oni and was tortured while they tutored him. He doesn't remember anything though, not yet at least.

Well, I was thinking that Aku and Treize have rather the same common enemy. Both of us have an enemy in a small brutal gang (I happened to call mine the crows and describe a human, but that's somewhat secondary, imo) and it could easily be tweaked so that the guy who Treize has an issue with is the same as who Aku has issues with.

Like Nictar, Treize also has a thirst for knowledge insofar as he hold knowledge to be power. That is the one undeniable truth for Treize. While his interests are really in moreso...tactically useful information as opposed to secret arcane mysteries of the universe...maybe the two have some kind of respect for each other's methods or some such?

I see a somewhat...love/hate relationship between Treize and Weyland. A sort of constant competition between them with each of them trying to one up the other on some daring thiefy/assassiny feat thing or another.

Also...to the other Elves/races with weird aging charts: have we decided on what kind of age scaling we're doing? Are we saying we're our races equivalent of Human sixteen (so Treize would be 100 and change?)? Or are we just having it be like a flat 16 all around (and we explain away that age difference saying its 'discovery' time or something)?

And I do somewhat need to know how combat/initiative is going to work as it pertains to the traits I pick up. Like, are we all rolling individual initiatives to determine combat order? Or are you just taking our average initiative scores as our 'default' initiative roll and we all act at the same time, together?

Preliminary Stat Block:

STR 12
DEX 19
CON 12
INT 14
WIS 08
CHA 10

Feat: Likely Weapon Finesse. Possibly TWF...but more likely Finesse.

I am somewhat...debating whether to drop CON to 10 and upping INT to 16. Mechanically, I know this is le dumb. BUT in terms of real RP flavour, I feel like Treize's INT should be higher. Also, while I hate playing this game because I know there's no way to say this without sounding whiney...I think that point gap between Humans and non-Humans is a bit much. I mean, compare these preliminary stats with those of Weyland in the recruitment thread. Same class, and I have racial bonuses to the stats that are important for a rogue. However, he still manages to crank out 20 DEX, and have enough points left over to kick his WIS up to 12.

I understand the reason why there's the stat difference (people shouldn't have to feel obligated to play a particular race to play their class effectively), but that said, 5 points really does kinda gimp any non-human a lot. In fact, if I weren't already conceptually committed to Treize being an Elf, there would have zero reason to roll up anything but a Human. If you like, the problem has simply become reversed: now the only way to play any class effectively is to be a Human. Thus I ask you reconsider that rule.

I'd prefer if at this point the gang is a little unfocussed beyond defence. Individual members may do some questionable things to bring in money, but I'd like to start the game with the gang starting to really crystallise, rather than being an existent force.

Aku, fair enough. Nic has probably pestered Aku for knowledge once or twice, but not too much.

Treize, mutual respect sounds good. Information is always good to have, although Nic's tastes tend toward the arcane. Nic might have also introduced Eris to Marcus Laertes Jeggare, who is a young bard and Nic's outside contact.

Personally, the first thing I thought of when I saw this campaign was the movie "Mobsters"(which if you haven't seen, I recommend) a buch of street smart kids band together, gain strength and eventually take over.

Here's to hoping that our PCs don't all end up dead or in the lockup.

As to what sources of income we want to tap into, I agree with not having anything to do with the trafficking of children of any kind. Other than that, I say let the market forces decide where our best interests lie.

Oh I definitely agree shouldn't do anything along the lines of child traficking, I was merely stating that where abuse it's concerned Aku already has had his fair share, and probably more.

That does sound good Treize.

As for Nic, also sounds good though there isn't a whole lot Aku knows.

Other things would be that if any of you happens to have a tattoo Aku could have done it or he would at least comment on it (if visible). As far as his own tattoos go, he'd happily explain most of them, though he can't tell where to two lines on his face come from or what they mean nor does he know where he got the bird, but he'll animate it to show off (it's his familiar)

Another thing is that it's likely he would have been sent to get people out of trouble with the law whenever Grandmother was otherwise occupied, simply because he's a smooth talker.

The way I figured I could do 8 people was through streamlining combat.
I'd like to post the bad guys, then have people post in whatever order they like. Next day (or earlier if everyone is done, I guess) I do the next bad guy's turn.
If people can be a little flexible in stating what they're doing should be fine.
People who don't post I'll default to a safe action like going full defence, but I'll try to be flexible if people can give warning.

What that means for initiative is that I'd like to do group on group. I was thinking everyone gets a roll and I take the highest, but I like the "average" idea better :)

@Tarek my model was oliver twist. Some kids do have it hard, but I'd like to keep it at a bit of a distance. Wetwork wise I had thought the group might end up doing it. Grandmother loves kids and is pretty NG, so she'd be heartbroken if "her kids" ended up hurting kids or being psychopaths.

Teens killing people for money seems a bit advanced. Maybe at mid levels? Also, there's being sanctioned by some branch of authority to take out a known threat to the public (known Evil). And, there's killing some councilman's husband or wife to sway a vote, so that some shady businessman can expand his business.

I wouldn't mind being in bed with the authorities and be paid to do what they are not allowed to or can't be associated with. IMF, CIA. The would also turn a blind eye to some of our less offensive lines of business.

I got rid of the "Eyes and Ears of the City" trait since it seems to be directly related to the worship of Abadar and being part of the City Watch. Ended up changing the skills around a bit as a result. I replaced it with "Reactionary" which seems to fit with he and his sister being bullied, but might go with something else if Initiative has less meaning.

The questions are also in the profile although I had trouble with the mid and long term goals since they may depend on what he finds out in his shorter term goals.

I agree with Nicator's thought with his penchant for research being in line with Anton's.
Shaezon seems to like the library as much as Anton, and they both seem to work there. Perhaps the Shaezon's Barnabe and Anton's near-crazy Sage friend are either the same person, or are themselves aquaintances.
Can't really say much about the others at the moment.

Nicator updated. Swapped out Evil Eye for Healing Hex and picked up some basic equipment (i.e. Spell Component Pouch, Quarterstaff, sling and bullets). I might adjust his current spells known slightly--Beguiling Gift is neat, but not really that necessary right now, methinks.

Also adjusted current spells prepped--Obscuring Mist and Sleep are both flavorful, given the pickpocketing he helps Gamil engage in, and useful.

Nicator, healing hex kinda sucks, it can only be used once per 24hrs per person. You'll get more milage out of just CLW. If you were the only source of healing, then I guess I could understand, but we have an oracle as well.

If you feel like healing, take Cauldron instead. Brew potion gives you more flexibility and potions aren't too shabby at low levels.

Hrrm. Here was my thought on it: it takes a hex slot, but frees up general spell slots for both myself and Anton. With healing hex, I free up resources for both myself and Anton--myself by freeing up spell slots for other things (more sleep, mist, etc.), and Anton by freeing up some of his spell slots for more inflictions and murderous commands. This seems particularly useful as we have a large party with only one person who could healbot--if more than 3 people take damage in a single day, we'd have to wait to fix them up, which could potentially be problematic. Additionally, HHex can serve to smite undead 1/day each, according to the errata on the SRD. Don't know how often we'll hit undead at this level, but a little smiting can't hurt.

As far as Cauldron, I didn't really look at it initially. I'm not sure that it would do any good at this level. Our characters are dirt poor--if I read the ad correctly, we all have minimum starting gold, which is all of 30 GP for me. By the time we hit level 2, it might be that they're a bit better off, making Cauldron a good investment at that point.

All that being said, I'll think about it. HHex is much less useful past level 3 or so. I hadn't really looked at Cauldron before, in part because I usually don't deal with magical item crafting, but I'll consider it. It's definitely more useful in the long run ("Whee, level 15 and I can heal everyone for 13 HP at most! Go healing hex!" vs. "Hey, cheap buffs!"), but we need to survive to get there. Hell, having Evil Eye for now and then picking up Cauldron at level 2 might be the way to go--increase survival now by debuffing, and then brew potions when it's more economically viable (Damn you, unseen hand!).

On a random note, I looked at Gamil's name in my post above, and read "Gmail" for a moment. Huh.

Remember the house rules dropped caster level requirements on all crafting feats. Tarek could take Craft Staff as a 1st level feat and start working on his Staff of Passage, and he doesn't even have a caster level. This reduces the utility of Brew Potion as a means of getting potions earlier.

Healing Hex qualifies for Accursed hex, which means if you use it to zap an undead and they save for half, then they become eligible to be hit again. I was going to say that it doesn't qualify for healing people despite RAW, but if people think healing hex is that underpowered I might be persuaded to allow it. ie save to resist half allows being hit for full on a second round.

Healing hex is less useful at level 15, unless you have some reason to be doing cleric-scale mass healing. I'll understand if Nic wants to scale it back a little and just get some CLW spells.

Can someone check my understanding: a hedge witch gains spontaneous healing at 1st level in exchange for the not getting as 4th level hex.

@DM:Don't you still need to be able to cast the required spells to make the item? Because if not, everyone should be taking a craft feat a first level.

@Nicator: I'm just biased against in combat healing. As soon as we get some scratch together, we can just grab a wand of CLW and top up between encounters. 9/10 if your option is to heal me or cast slumber on the person about to hit me, you're better off casting slumber.

On the other hand , stabilize is one of the better healing cantrips out there.

@Weyland: spells used in creation can by cast by someone else, or ignored at +5 Caster Level. Items that stipulate a required caster level (like crafting a flesh golem) cannot have that requirement bypassed. So only someone with a caster level can craft a magic weapon, but anyone can take craft magic arms & armour.
Remember this is a high magic world - a level 9 spellcasting metropolis. It's pretty easy to find items of 16k or less, the feat just lets you create it for half or create very expensive custom items.
The DC for the spellcraft roll is usually pretty high.

I'll be picking up Craft Wondrous Item for sure, just not sure when. Probably 5th.

As for healing hex, I think we'd indeed be better of with just healing spells. I'll even pick up the Infernal Healing spell if we're really desperate (at lvl 2 that is). The smite on the other hand, might actually turn healing hex into something worthwhile.

Shaezon seems to like the library as much as Anton, and they both seem to work there. Perhaps the Shaezon's Barnabe and Anton's near-crazy Sage friend are either the same person, or are themselves aquaintances.

My preference is for aquaintaces.

Note regards profession - people do not necessarily have a paying job with their profession at this time. It might earn pocket money, or more likely access to resources.

At this time the characters are more "apprentices", but ready to start earning a living.

Once you set up working in your profession you'll get to make the normal roll, but finding and keeping a job that pays well is a goal in itself. (Albeit probably a fairly easy one)

I'm OK, with some other form of healing, whether it be through hex or other spells. I've somewhat gimped my spell selection due to my curse since I'll need the Inflict spells to heal myself and Cure spells for the rest of the group. I was tempted to have Infernal Healing instead of CLW since that would be useful for everyone (just not as instant). I might still go there before we start, or just swap out the Cure at level 4 when I get the 2nd level spells.

I do like the idea of picking up some wands when we can afford them. Or even scrolls would work too.

@Anton:Oracles get the cure or inflict spells for free on top of their selected spells

In addition to the spells gained by oracles as they gain levels, each oracle also adds all of either the cure spells or the inflict spells to her list of spells known (cure spells include all spells with “cure” in the name, inflict spells include all spells with “inflict” in the name). These spells are added as soon as the oracle is capable of casting them. This choice is made when the oracle gains her first level and cannot be changed.

@Weyland. Yeah, the free spell thing is quite handy and I've included it in my spell selection. My point was that one 'feature' of my curse makes Inflict spells cure me and Cure spells harm me. This means I'll need a slot (or the free choice) as something that heals me (e.g. Inflict or Infernal Healing) and a separate slot (or the free choice) as something that heals the party (e.g. Cure or Infernal Healing), which leaves one slot free for some other spell.

Flavour-wise, the Inflict spells as the freebie makes sense (Black blood, Dark Tapestry, etc.) and that's the direction I took, so that means one of my other spell slots will be needed for the Cure spell. And that's something that could be swapped out for the higher level version of the spell (so at 4th, when I get access to 2nd level spells, drop Cure Light for Cure Moderate, and pick a different 1st level spell).

I might need to revise some of my stats so that my combat effectiveness isn't relegated to Inflict/Cure spells. Maybe a higher Dex for ranged attacks, or Strength and a reach weapon. I'm leaning towards the former.

One of the reasons I was thinking to bump the Dex was to help mitigate the penalty to things we may need (like Stealth), increase AC, and to maybe stay out of melee (unless I need to use those touch attacks) and go with ranged attacks since they aren't affecte by the -4.

Then again some kind of pole arm could be pretty cool. Nice visuals. Maybe I'll go with that. Keeps me in the middle in case there is a need for some healing too. Hmm, now I'm leaning towards the STR side of things...

I guess it could depend too on what the rest of the team are doing. Will it be like one big mosh pit or will there be folks hanging back for some precision shooting?

Aku will start in the back to eventually fly above it all. I'll most likely turn him into a blaster (with control via Dazing Spell). He'll also be using quite some illusions and things like Alter Self.

If the GM allows Wildblooded bloodlines via Eldritch Heritage he'll be very tough eventually though.

Hrrm. I think I will prep a CLW or two each day in lieu of healing hex--should be enough to cover general healing needs if we're smart and sneaky, and the heal skill will help fill in any long-term gaps.

This should give Nicator plenty of utility for now, while prepping spells that allow him to help a fair bit with healing.

I'll make a final decision about Cauldron at level 2--depending on how the group is doing so far, what has happened to the group (maybe it will make good RP sense at that point), etc. I'll probably pick up some more item creation feats as time goes on as well. For now, I'll snag a Healer's Kit and swap Stabilize into my cantrips memorized.

@nicator I would get cackle earlier evil eye + cackle lets you debuff infinite enemies. You could dump cauldron unless you're into it for roleplay reasons.

@Anton I don't think we have any dedicated martial ranged characters. Weyland will probably throw his knives at first level, but after that he'll be a bit of a switch hitter. Also, I wouldn't worry too much about DPS if you don't want to, there is 8 PCs, you afford to specialize however you want to.

I'm not looking for DPS. I just want to be able to contribute to being something other than a wet noodle after running out of madness and/or spells. Maybe a reach weapon with trip or something (although I'd need to snag the proficiency). I suppose at 3 when I get a Heritage Feat, I'll have a different set of attacks and so be less reliant on weapons, so it might be moot. I'll ponder things.

Oh and Neutral Good. I figure I'll need to try to stay in the Good range or risk falling into the temptation of siding with the Elder Gods, Old Ones and other monstrosities. That way lies madness.

Well, I was thinking that Aku and Treize have rather the same common enemy. Both of us have an enemy in a small brutal gang (I happened to call mine the crows and describe a human, but that's somewhat secondary, imo) and it could easily be tweaked so that the guy who Treize has an issue with is the same as who Aku has issues with.

Like Nictar, Treize also has a thirst for knowledge insofar as he hold knowledge to be power. That is the one undeniable truth for Treize. While his interests are really in moreso...tactically useful information as opposed to secret arcane mysteries of the universe...maybe the two have some kind of respect for each other's methods or some such?

I see a somewhat...love/hate relationship between Treize and Weyland. A sort of constant competition between them with each of them trying to one up the other on some daring thiefy/assassiny feat thing or another.

Also...to the other Elves/races with weird aging charts: have we decided on what kind of age scaling we're doing? Are we saying we're our races equivalent of Human sixteen (so Treize would be 100 and change?)? Or are we just having it be like a flat 16 all around (and we explain away that age difference saying its 'discovery' time or something)?

And I do somewhat need to know how combat/initiative is going to work as it pertains to the traits I pick up. Like, are we all rolling individual initiatives to determine combat order? Or are you just taking our average initiative scores as our 'default' initiative roll and we all act at the same time, together?

Remember the house rules dropped caster level requirements on all crafting feats. Tarek could take Craft Staff as a 1st level feat and start working on his Staff of Passage, and he doesn't even have a caster level. This reduces the utility of Brew Potion as a means of getting potions earlier.

Ohh! I didn't quite make that connection. I'll be taking Wondrous at earliest opportunity. Any other such feats are maybes'.